In His Steps - New Abridged Editon Page 13
And Rollin, as he went back, treasured a hope that had been a stranger to him since Rachel had said no that day.
Chapter Forty
THE SUMMER had gone, and Raymond was once more facing the rigor of her winter season. Virginia had been able to accomplish a part of her plan for "capturing the Rectangle," as she called it. But the building of houses in the field, the transforming of its bleak, bare aspect into an attractive park, all of which was included in her plan, was a work too large to be completed that fall after she had secured the property.
But a million dollars, in the hands of a person who really wants to do with it as Jesus would, ought to accomplish wonders for humanity in a short time; and Henry Maxwell, going over to the scene of the new work one day after a noon hour with the newspaper men, was amazed to see how much had been done outwardly.
Yet he walked home thoughtfully, and on his way he could not avoid the question of the continual problem thrust into his notice by the saloon. How much had been done for the Rectangle after all? Even counting in Virginia's and Rachel's work and Mr. Gray's, where had it actually counted in any visible quantity?
Of course, he said to himself that the redemptive work begun and carried on by the Holy Spirit in His wonderful displays of power in the First Church, and in the tent meetings, had had its effect on the life of Raymond. But as he walked past saloon after saloon, and noted the crowds going in and coming out of them, as he caught the brutality and squalor and open misery and degradation on countless faces of men and women and children, he sickened at the sight.
He found himself asking how much cleansing could even a million dollars poured into this cesspool accomplish? He could not escape the question. It was the same that Virginia had put to Rachel in her statement that in her opinion nothing really would ever be done until the saloons were taken out of the Rectangle.
Henry Maxwell went back to his parish work that afternoon with added convictions on the license business.
But if the saloons were a factor in the problem of the life of Raymond, no less was the First Church and its little company of disciples who had pledged themselves to do as Jesus would do. Henry Maxwell, standing at the very centre of the movement, was not in a position to judge of its power as someone from the outside might have done. But Raymond itself felt the touch of this new discipleship, and was changed in very many ways, not knowing all the reasons for the change.
* * *
The winter had gone and the year was ended, the year which Henry Maxwell had fixed as the time during which the pledge should be kept to do as Jesus would do. Sunday, the anniversary of that one a year ago, was in many ways the most remarkable day the First Church ever knew. It was more important than the disciples in the First Church realized.
It happened that the week before that anniversary Sunday, the Rev. Calvin Bruce, D.D. of the Nazareth Avenue Church, Chicago, was in Raymond where he had come on a visit to some old friends, and incidentally to see his old seminary classmate, Henry Maxwell.
He was present at the First Church, and was an exceedingly attentive and interested spectator. His account of events in Raymond, and especially of that Sunday, may throw more light on the entire situation than any description or record from other sources.
Chapter Forty-One
LETTER from the Rev. Calvin Bruce, D.D., of the Nazareth Avenue Church, Chicago, to the Rev. Philip S. Caxton, D.D., New York City.
My Dear Caxton,
It is late Sunday night, but I am so intensely awake, and so overflowing with what I have seen and heard, that I feel driven to write you now some account of the situation in Raymond, as it has apparently come to a climax today. So this is my only excuse for writing so extended a letter at this time.
You remember Henry Maxwell in the seminary? I think you said, the last time I visited you in New York, that you had not seen him since we graduated. He was a refined, scholarly fellow, you remember, and when he was called to the First Church of Raymond, within a year after leaving the seminary, I said to my wife, "Raymond has made a good choice. Maxwell will satisfy them as a "sermonizer." He has now been here eleven years, and I understand that up to a year ago he had gone on in the regular course of the ministry, drawing a good congregation to his morning preaching service.
His church was counted the largest, most wealthy church in Raymond. All the best people attended it. The quartette choir was famous for its music, especially for its soprano, Miss Winslow, of whom I shall have more to say; and on the whole, as I understand the facts, Maxwell was in a comfortable berth, with a very good salary, pleasant surroundings, a parish of refined, rich, respectable people -- such a church and parish as nearly all the young men in the seminary in our time looked forward to as desirable.
But a year ago today, Maxwell came into his church on Sunday morning, and at the close of his service made the astounding proposition that the members of his church volunteer for a year not to do anything without first asking the question, "What would Jesus do?" and, after answering it, to do what in their honest judgment He would do, regardless of what the result might be to them.
Those who have not taken the pledge regard the others as foolishly literal in their attempts to imitate the example of Jesus. Some of them have drawn out of the church and no longer attend. Some are an internal element of strife, and I heard rumors of an attempt on their part to force Maxwell's resignation. I do not know that this element is very strong. It has been held in check by a wonderful continuance of spiritual power, which dates from the first Sunday the pledge was taken a year ago, and also by the fact that so many prominent members have been identified with the movement.
I do not know if I agree with Maxwell altogether; but, my dear Caxton, it is certainly astonishing to note the results of this idea, as they have impressed themselves upon this city and this church.
At the end of the meeting, Maxwell frankly admitted that he was still, to a certain degree, uncertain as to Jesus' probable action when it came to the details of household living, the possession of wealth, the holding of certain luxuries. It is, however, evident that many of these disciples have repeatedly carried their obedience to Jesus to the extreme limit, regardless of financial loss. There is no lack of courage or consistency at this point.
It is also true that some of the businessmen who took the pledge have lost great sums of money in this imitation of Jesus, and very many have, like Alexander Powers, lost valuable positions owing to the impossibility of doing what they had been accustomed to do, and at the same time doing what they felt Jesus would do in the same place.
In connection with these cases it is pleasant to record the fact that many who have suffered in this way have been helped financially by those who still have means. In this respect I think it is true that these disciples have all things in common. Certainly such scenes as I witnessed at the First Church at that after-service this morning I never saw in my church or any other. I never dreamed that such Christian fellowship could exist in this age of the world.
Before the meeting closed today, steps were taken to secure the cooperation of all other Christian disciples in this country. I think Henry Maxwell took this step after long deliberation. He said as much to me one day when I called upon him and we were discussing the effect of this movement upon the Church in general.
This is a grand idea, Caxton, but right here is where I find myself hesitating. I do not deny that the Christian disciple ought to follow Christ's steps as closely as these here in Raymond have tried to do. But I cannot avoid asking what the result will be if I ask my church in Chicago to do it.
I am writing this after feeling the solemn, profound touch of the Holy Spirit's presence, and I confess to you, old friend, that I cannot call up in my church a dozen prominent business or professional men who would make this trial at the risk of all that they hold dear. Can you do any better in your church? What are we to say? That the church would not respond to the call, "Come and suffer"?
My church is wealthy, full of well-to-do
, satisfied people. The standard of their discipleship is, I am aware, not of a nature to respond to the call to suffering or personal loss. I say, "I am aware." I may be mistaken. I may have erred in not stirring their deeper life.
Caxton, my friend, I have spoken my inmost thought to you. Shall I go back to my people next Sunday and stand up before them in my large city church and say, "Let us follow Jesus closer. Let us walk in His steps where it will cost us something more than it is costing us now. Let us pledge not to do anything without first asking, 'What would Jesus do?'"
If I should go before them with that message, it would be a strange and startling one to them. But why? Are we not really to follow Jesus all the way? What is it to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean to imitate Him? What does it mean to walk in His steps?
* * *
The Rev. Calvin Bruce, D.D., of the Nazareth Avenue Church, Chicago, let his pen fall on the paper. The night was very still. The clock in the First Church was striking midnight. As it finished, a clear strong voice down in the direction of the Rectangle came floating up to him as if home on radiant pinions.
"Must Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No! There's a cross for everyone,
And there's a cross for me."
It was the voice of one of Gray's old converts, a night watchman at the packing houses, who sometimes solaced his lonesome hours by a verse or two from some familiar hymn.
The Rev. Calvin Bruce turned away from the window, and after a little hesitation he kneeled down. "What would Jesus do? What would Jesus do?"
Never had he yielded himself so completely to the Spirit's searching, revealing of Jesus. He was on his knees a long time. He retired, and slept fitfully, with many awakenings. He rose before it was clear dawn, and threw open his window again. As the light in the east grew stronger, he repeated to himself, "What would Jesus do? What would He do? Shall I follow His steps?"
The sun rose and flooded the city with its power. With this question throbbing through his whole being, the Rev. Calvin Bruce went back to Chicago, and the great crisis of his Christian life in the ministry suddenly broke irresistibly upon him.
Chapter Forty-Two
THE SATURDAY MATINEE at the Auditorium in Chicago was just over, and the usual crowd was struggling to get to its carriage before anyone else. The Auditorium attendant was shouting out the number of different carriages, and the carriage doors were slamming as the horses were driven rapidly to the curb, held there impatient by the drivers who had shivered long in the raw east wind, and then let go to plunge for a few minutes into the river of vehicles that tossed under the elevated railway and finally went whirling off up the avenue.
"Now, then, six-two-four!" shouted the Auditorium attendant; "Six-two-four!" he repeated, and there dashed up to the curb a splendid span of black horses attached to a carriage having the monogram C. R. S. in gilt letters on the panel of the door.
Two girls stepped out of the crowd towards the carriage. The older one had entered and taken her seat, and the attendant was still holding the door open for the younger, who stood hesitating on the curb.
"Come, Felicia! What are you waiting for? I shall freeze to death!" called the voice from the carriage.
The girl outside of the carriage hastily unpinned a bunch of English violets from her dress and handed them to a small boy who was standing shivering on the edge of the sidewalk, almost under the horses' feet. He took them with a look of astonishment and a "Thank ye, lady!" and instantly buried a very grimy face in the bunch of perfume.
The girl stepped into the carriage, the door shut with the incisive bang peculiar to well-made carriages of this sort, and in a few moments the coachman was speeding the horses rapidly up one of the boulevards.
"You are always doing some strange thing or other, Felicia," said the older girl, as the carriage whirled on past the great residences already brilliantly lighted.
"Am I? What have I done that is strange now, Rose?" asked the other, looking up suddenly and turning her head towards her sister.
"Oh, giving those violets to that boy. He looked as if he needed a good hot supper more than a bunch of violets. It's a wonder you didn't invite him home with us. I shouldn't have been surprised if you had. You are always doing such strange things."
"Would it be strange to invite a boy like that to come to the house and get a hot supper?" Felicia asked the question softly, and almost as if she was alone.
"Strange isn't just the word, of course," replied Rose indifferently. "It would be what Madam Blanc calls outré. Decidedly. Therefore, you will please not invite him, or others like him, to hot suppers because you think I suggested it. Oh dear, I'm awfully tired!"
She yawned, and Felicia silently looked out of the window in the door.
"The concert was stupid, and the violinist was simply a bore. I don't see how you could sit so still through it all," Rose exclaimed, a little impatiently.
"I liked the music," answered Felicia.
"You like anything. I never saw a girl with so little critical taste."
Felicia colored slightly, but would not answer. Rose yawned again, and then hummed a fragment of a popular song. Then she exclaimed abruptly, "I'm sick of most everything. I hope The Shadows of London will be exciting tonight."
"The shadows of Chicago," murmured Felicia, her attention fixed on the dark city streets.
"The Shadows of Chicago! The Shadows of London, the play, the great drama with its wonderful scenery, the sensation of New York for two months. You know we have a box with the Delanos tonight."
Felicia turned her face towards her sister. Her great brown eyes were very expressive and not altogether free from a sparkle of luminous heat. "And yet we never weep over the real thing on the actual stage of life. What are the shadows of London on the stage to the shadows of London or Chicago as they really exist? Why don't we get excited over the facts as they are?"
"Because the actual people are dirty and disagreeable and it's too much bother, I suppose," replied Rose carelessly. "Felicia, you never can reform the world. What's the use? We're not to blame for the poverty and misery. There have always been rich and poor. And there always will be. We ought to be thankful we're rich."
"Suppose Jesus Christ had gone on that principle," replied Felicia, with unusual persistence. "Do you remember Dr. Bruce's sermon on that verse a few Sundays ago: 'For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich'?"
"I remember it well enough," said Rose, with some petulance. "And didn't Dr. Bruce go on to say that there was no blame attached to people who have wealth, if they are kind and give to the needs of the poor? And I am sure the Doctor himself is pretty comfortably settled. He never gives up his luxuries just because some people in the city go hungry. What good would it do if he did? I tell you, Felicia, there will always be poor and rich in spite of all we can do. Ever since Cousin Rachel has written about the strange doings in Raymond, you have upset the whole family. People can't live at that pitch all the time. You see if Rachel doesn't give it up soon. It's a great pity she doesn't come to Chicago and sing in the Auditorium concerts. I'm going to write and urge her to come. I'm just dying to hear her sing."
Felicia looked out of the window and was silent. The carriage rolled on past two blocks of magnificent private residences and turned into a wide driveway under a covered passage, and the sisters hurried into the house. It was an elegant mansion of gray stone, furnished like a palace, every comer of it warm with the luxury of paintings, sculpture, art, and modern refinement.
The owner of it all, Mr. Charles R. Sterling, stood before an open fire smoking a cigar. He had made his money in grain speculation and railroad ventures, and was reputed to be worth something over two millions. His wife was a sister of Mrs. Winslow of Raymond, and had been an invalid for several years. The two girls, Rose and Felicia, were the only children. Rose was twenty-o
ne years old -- fair, vivacious, educated in a fashionable college, just entering society, and already somewhat cynical and indifferent. A very hard young lady to please, her father said sometimes playfully, sometimes sternly.
Felicia was nineteen, with a tropical beauty somewhat like her cousin Rachel Winslow, with warm, generous impulses just waking into Christian feeling, capable of all sorts of expression, a puzzle to her father, a source of irritation to her mother, and with a great unsurveyed territory of thought and action in herself of which she was becoming more and more conscious.
"Here's a letter for you, Felicia," said Mr. Sterling, taking it out of his pocket.
Felicia sat down and instantly opened the letter, saying as she did so, "It's from Rachel."
"Well, what's the latest news from Raymond?" asked Mr. Sterling, taking his cigar out of his mouth and looking at Felicia as he often did with half-shut eyes, as if he were studying her.
"Rachel says Dr. Bruce has been in Raymond for two Sundays and has seemed very much interested in Mr. Maxwell's pledge in the First Church."
"What does Rachel say about herself?" asked Rose, who was lying on a couch almost buried under half a dozen elegant cushions.
"She is still singing at the Rectangle. Since the tent meetings closed, she sings in an old hall, until the new buildings her friend Virginia Page is putting up are completed."
Mr. Sterling lighted a new cigar. "I must write Rachel to come to Chicago and visit us. She ought not to throw away her voice in that railroad town upon all those people who don't appreciate her."
Rose exclaimed, "Rachel might set Chicago wild with her voice if she sang in the Auditorium. And there she goes on, throwing her voice away on people who don't know what they are hearing."
"Rachel won't come here to sing unless she can do it and keep her pledge at the same time," said Felicia, after a pause.
"What pledge?" Mr. Sterling asked the question, and then added hastily, "Oh, I know; yes. A very peculiar thing, that. Powers used to be a friend of mine. We learned telegraphy in the same office. Made a great sensation when he resigned and handed over that evidence to the Interstate Commerce Commission. And he's back at his telegraph again. There have been strange doings in Raymond during the past year. I wonder what Dr. Bruce thinks of it. I must have a talk with him about it."